Here’s the text of an update I posted over on Unbound’s site for East of England, though it makes sense to have it copied here too.

East of England has been out for a fortnight now, and most folk seem to like it, which is gratifying. If you've been able to leave a review already then thanks very much! If you haven't (or plain haven't got around to reading the book yet), then please consider leaving your thoughts - however brief - on Amazon, on Goodreads, and/or elsewhere on social media. For smaller publishers like Unbound, and for little fish in the writing pond like me, these things really matter, and can help get word of the book out to wider potential readerships.

The publishers have organised a blog tour - basically a sequenced run of interviews, extracts and reviews from crime fiction-oriented book bloggers - which starts tomorrow (Monday 11th Feb, as I'm writing this up on Sunday morning). I'll do what I can to promote this through the ten day run of this tour, but again, anything you can do support-wise (as well as reading what the different bloggers have got to say on the book) is both valuable and appreciated.

East of England blog tour details

Third, those who've read East of England will have seen (and maybe even read) the opening pages of a continuation novel - the second in a potential series - titled Canine Jubilee. That book again will be crowdfunded via Unbound, and there'll be some stuff coming out about that hopefully in the next few days.

Fourth and finally, check out my brother Max's page for Field Notes - also being crowdfunded by Unbound - and consider backing the book. Details on that are here.

Here's where we are with East of England. Those of you fine folk who have already pledged to the support the book should have received an email spelling out some of this, so apologies for any duplication. As noted in that email, Unbound break down their route to publication into ten stages:

Funding target reached

The final draft of the manuscript is delivered.

The editor edits. And edits.

Cover and artwork design begins.

The copy editor reviews the manuscript for consistency.

Typesetter formats manuscript for printing

First proofs come back and are sent to the proofreader

Final edits are made

Artwork finalised

Final proofs go to press

Where are we? We're at stage 3 of that process. I delivered the manuscript of the novel at the weekend (after two full drafts and what felt at the time like a thorough tidy-up), and it's now in the wildly-capable hands of its editor. Those who pledged to have their (or a loved one's) name featured in the novel have had the appropriate name included...

There'll now be a period of to-and-fro between the editor and me, first on the overall structure of the book, and then on the writing at the level of paragraph, sentence and word. Basically, the editor acts as a critical friend / constructive critic to help ensure that East of England a) makes sense b) is great c) doesn't have any errors / mistakes / unwarranted weirdness in it.

This part of the process will take a few weeks, not least as it's summer and we'd all rather be outside making sandcastles and flicking towels at each other than being hunched over a laptop, grumbling at a manuscript.

There'll be update emails from Unbound throughout the process to publication, and I'll do the same, hopefully explaining stuff along the way.

In the meantime, writing on other stuff continues apace. I'd tell you more, but I wouldn't want to spoil the surprise.

The pledges / pre-orders will remain open to let other fine folk get on board to receive the acclaim and glory that being a crowd-funder and an arts patron brings. So, if you either want to get copies for others, or simply like having multiple copies o the same book on your shelves, you can make those pre-orders here.

Also, if you're so minded I thoroughly recommend pre-ordering (also from Unbound) my brother Maxim's book Field Notes.

As you know, I'm currently crowdfunding my new novel East of England through Unbound Publishing. And I'm not alone! So, I've asked a few fellow writers on Unbound's current roster to give a quick overview of their writing work, and the book they're crowdfunding themselves in a ten questions format.

Today's 10 questions is a little different, if only that the subject is a brother of mine who's also currently crowdfunding via Unbound. Here's Maxim to explain a little more:

1. Who are you and what’s your book about?

My name is Maxim Peter Griffin. I draw.

What the book is about is a tricky one – on one level it’s a nice book of drawings of Lincolnshire with some bits of writing about the countryside. On another it’s about the ghost mammoths and Brexit and stellar death and Doggerland.

Half-haikus about flint – big stuff across a landmass – being simultaneously huge and tiny in the face of cosmic indifference and the Jolly Fisherman

Field Notes is sometimes really mournful ( there’s a lot to mourn ), sometimes full of idiot glee –

2. Why should folk read your book?

It doesn’t matter if they do or don’t, really –

Field Notes is beyond the point of failure already, 95% of what is in the book has already occurred, been drawn or walked or what have you – I’ve had my nourishment … a large part of making these experiences and actions into a book is an administrative procedure… a fun one, mind you

3. What’s the appeal of your book?

Field Notes is wild. Wilder. Often rather fucking livid. But full of marshes – that’s what people like isn’t it? angry marshes?

4. Sounds great! Where/when can I get hold of a copy?

Soon enough, after the hurly-burly of crowdfunding is done.

5. Describe a typical writing day, or at least a typical day with some writing in it:

5 am – dogs out

6 am – back with dogs

Make notes after walk

Drawing between 9 and noon

Later – when house is quiet, make more notes – maybe type them up to see how they look.

[Question 6 - the one about books about writing - went unanswered]

7. Pick three books that have influenced or inspired you as a writer:

Mr Palomar by I. Calvino

Haunted Houses by E. Maple and L. Myring

The Mound People by P.V Glob

8. Pick three desert island books - works you couldn’t live without:

I’ll have a really sweet atlas please.

maybe Seven Pillars of Wisdom or the old Penguin Book of Welsh Verse

and my copy of Wind in the Willows ( no other editions thanks )

9. Any words of writing wisdom?

Read. Look. Listen. Walk. Cook.

Keep dated notes on everything.

Don’t be an Artist, never go on a Journey.

10. Let’s make a movie of your book. Give me the high-concept pitch:

Mad Max 2 but on foot near Mablethorpe and the anti-hero is his own Humungus – filmed on VHS

Huge thanks to Max for playing along. Field Notes is great - I've seen some more of the work in progress, and naturally, I've backed the project myself - it comes at you like a mix of Raymond Briggs and AW Wainwright. Who can resist that kind of combination? Surely not you, which is why you feel irresistibly drawn towards pledging ...

Hi all, and a happy Easter to you if you're having a break, be it a religious festival, a few days off, a handful of chocolate eggs, or any blend of the preceding.

In terms of project progress for the funding of East of England, we're at the 37% mark, which means there's £1500 banked with the publishers and £2500 to go. There's 88 supporters for the book already - which is fantastic - so that means attracting about another 180 to hit the funding target. At the present rate of progress, that's about 5-6 months' work. These things take time, it seems! So, if there's anything you feel inclined to do in terms of nursing the book into life (shares/comments/retweets on social media, telling family and friends and the like) then that'd be very much appreciated As you might imagine, getting people interested in a book that's not available yet (even though it's written) isn't altogether straightforward.

The money raised through the pre-ordering process goes to meet the production and distribution costs of the book - I don't see a penny until a) the book's over 100% funded and b) it's on sale and folk buy some.

Most of the higher-level pledges have been taken (I've got one "name a character after yourself/a friend") place left, so big thanks to those who've bought those packages. I've got a nicely roguish pair of characters selected that'll be slightly rewritten to accommodate the names/appearance of these fine folk. I've also got a couple of pledges available for me to go anywhere in the UK and give a creative writing class/talk/event of some sort (you can decide the content). Got a plan for one of those slots though...

I've written the first draft of a short story set in the same fictional universe, and this may yet get bundled into the book as an additional extra. More free stuff! I spoil you, I really do. Also, I'm cooking up ideas for a sequel, and I'd hope to include the first chapter of this at the back of the published book to lead folks towards another reading adventure.

Finally, another project for you to consider. Some of you may know my brother Maxim; well, he's been approached by Unbound to produce a book for them, and crowdfunding for that started this week. You can find more details about the book - Field Notes - here. Have a look and consider backing his project too!

Thanks for reading (and for being patient during the funding process!)

They're in no way official, so I wouldn't necessarily expect any of them to end up as a cover to the book when it gets published, but they are - I admit - pretty cool.

East of England is being crowdfunded via Unbound Publishing; this means pre-orders of the book are necessary to raise its preproduction costs (editing, proofreading, design, printing, the cover, advertising, promotion and distribution and so on). So, don't wait till it hits the bookshelves! As you'll see from the book's details, there are a handful of different pledge levels with escalating rewards; plus, everyone gets their name in the book as thanks. Plus, you get to be a patron of the arts, which isn't too bad, is it?

Which one's your favourite? And how do they relate to your own visual sense of the book? Again, details - including how to support East of England - are here.

The book's as before - I've kept the woodcut-alike frontispiece by Maxim Peter Griffin (which was the previous ebook cover) in both paperback and ebook editions - but the front cover's had a new splash of paint to make it more immediately appealing. I've got a blog post brewing about working how to work out how to self-publish by doing it the tricky way and finding things out for yourself; one aspect of that is the necessity for an immediate cover.

Max (the aforementioned illustrator-brother) and I spent an amusing twenty minutes or so in the local WH Smith going through book covers.

Though there's some great work out there, there's an awful lot of variations upon a theme. Thriller? A silhouette of a bloke on a road (they're called "thrillouettes" in the trade, I'm led to believe). Female protagonist? This year, something involving trees appears the way to go. Of course, there are perennials. A rosy-cheeked young woman with basket in hand if it's a Catherine Cookson-style saga. Armoured fella charging towards you with a battle in the background if it's an action-oriented historical novel (what someone once called the "Andy McStab" approach).

I've been to more than one writing convention when there's been a book buyer from one of the major chains on one of the panels. The cover's the thing, they emphasise. Especially for online and railway purchases; what sells a book is the call to action (i.e. buy the book) given by a simple and direct cover. Books, often, are impulse purchases.

So that's an element of the thinking here. Prospect is a book, after all, about the Great Fire of London. So there's a need to have a, er, Great Fire of London-related image front and centre.

Anyway, I hope you like the new cover! Here comes the hard sell: Prospect is out now and available here - at the time of posting, the files are still propagating their way through Amazon's systems, so the new cover might not show for a day or so!